364 tickets for Rod Stewart's latest UK tour were for sale on Stubhub the day before pre-sale had even begun. Viagogo had been selling Benedict Cumberbatch tickets for £1,500 with a £62.50 resale value despite the Barbican venue having a really strict policy on ticket reselling and also the need for photographic ID.

Consumer rights laws state that ticket buyers should be notified of any restrictions on the tickets and his should include seating details plus the original face value of tickets should be stated.

Richard Lloyd of Which? said:

People get rightly frustrated losing out on popular tickets, particularly when they end up on sale at the same time on secondary sites at higher prices.

We need the government review to crack down on those who resell tickets at inflated prices on an industrial scale.

At the moment it is far too easy for these ticket marketplaces to place the emphasis on the sellers and shift any blame for people making huge sums of money at the expense of those just wanting to catch a show.

Not being quick off the mark for a particular event is probably your own fault but if tickets aren't available because assholes scalpers are able to get in before presale, well that certainly does need looking at and we'd be all for that.

the reason why so many tickets are available on those sites is because the promoters know that certain tickets are worth more than face value, such as the first few rows, or they seek to increase profits as they have a legal requirement to their shareholders to maximise profits, so they sell the best seats to those agencies to sell at higher prices
it means artists aren't embarrassed by the real face value of tickets reflecting their true value, such as £1000 front row seats. artists and their management are complicit in this. the problem isn't "scalpers" buying tickets earlier, that's just a smokescreen
what happens is perfectly legal and any suggestion i've heard is easily changed. if the law requires tickets not to be sold over face value then the people selling tickets can simply print the actual price paid on the ticket as they print the tickets too. or tickets can be sold as part of packages, so £10000 for a £50 ticket plus a pre gig "party" or an "exclusive" gift bag
most of the tickets aren't being "resold", they are being sold for the first time. the have a go casual touts who buy tickets to gigs they don't want to go to and then try and resell is another issue but a lesser one than the promoters selling 20% of tickets over face value to other agencies, and keeping an allocation for guest list as well

[...] Which? want a crackdown on event ticket resales – We need the government review to crack down on those who resell tickets at inflated prices on … Not being quick off the mark for a particular event is probably your own fault but if tickets aren’t available because … [...]